FIFTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS 343 



own in order to find where we have common ground. None can pretend to 

 have covered the field; indeed the chief need is for more systematic effort and 

 wider publicity by those most competent to do so. But we may properly outline 

 what we believe to be the chief problems to be solved in the disposal of national 

 forest timber, and in so doing perhaps suggest considerations relating to other 

 disputed questions of forest economics. 



The questions suggested first are these: 



Is the Government selling less timber than it should from a strictly financial 

 or revenue viewpoint, considering only its responsibility as agent of the owners — 

 the people? 



Is it selling less than it should to protect consumers from private monopoly? 



Is it selling less than it should to reimburse the western States, through their 

 statutory 35 per cent share of gross receipts, for their loss of tax revenue through 

 withholding of the timber from private ownership ? 



Is it selling less than it should to afford opportunity to lumbermen without 

 timber of their own? This question incidentally covers also responsibility for 

 up-building a lumber industry to afford local communities a market for labor 

 and supplies. 



Is it selling less than it should to accomplish the best technical management 

 of the forest — the utilization of existing material and its replacement by new 

 material ? 



Is it selling more that it should to accomplish best any of the above objects 

 or to insure a needed supply later on? 



Is it charging too much for its timber, or too little, considering all these 

 things, to accomplish the most desirable measure of disposal, to obtain the best 

 revenue, or to influence desirably the price of other timber? 



Does it base its policy in all these things upon complete and sound premises? 



Aside from its basic policy, is execution business-like, practical and com- 

 petent ? 



If it is remiss in any of these things, is the remedy determinable, or does 

 it require the acquisition of further knowledge? 



It will not be possible to discuss all these questions categorically without 

 reference to each other, for they are closely related. Nevertheless the order in 

 which they have been stated may be followed as far as necessary to introduce 

 the facts involved. 



REALIZING THE VALUE OF THE TIMBER 



CONSIDERING the return to the Treasury of the United States, conse- 

 quently to the population as a whole, present and future, obviously it 

 does not pay to sell any timber today that will increase in sale value 

 faster than its carrying cost accumulates. Excepting dead timber, there is prob- 

 ably none in public ownership and free from taxes that will not so increase. 

 That most of it will, even when taxed, is the basis of private timber speculation. 

 While it is true that over-mature timber may be advantageously replaced by 

 young timber if the selling period is far enough in the future, for some time 



